Adolescent sexual development: Contextualizing a cognitive process in the decision to engage in protective or risky sexual behavior

The central aim of this dissertation was to study teenage protective and risky sexual behavior from a developmental perspective. More specifically, this study examined how sociocognitive factors derived from Protection Motivation Theory (Rogers, 1975), were associated with sexual behaviors. Adolescents' perceived ability to protect the self from sexual risk (self-efficacy) and their perceived effectiveness of the protective response (response efficacy) were evaluated. Additionally, adolescents' evaluations of the costs to the protective response (response costs) were assessed. Family cohesion, and peer support for sexual activity were also studied to see whether these factors were directly associated with adolescent sexual behavior. Sociocognitive factors were further evaluated to see if they served as mediators between family cohesion and sexual behavior, and between peer support and sexual behavior. Adolescent characteristics such as age, gender, and ethnic/cultural background were considered to discover whether these factors have an effect on the associations between sociocognitive, family and peer factors, and sexual behaviors of adolescents. The sample consisted of 254 African-American and Latino adolescents between the ages of 12-21. Results revealed age, gender, and ethnicity as important factors in the prediction of sexual behavior. Of the three sociocognitive factors, self-efficacy was shown to be most reliable predictor of protective sexual behavior. Findings also showed that for African-American youth, response cost was negatively associated with protective sex. This result did not extend for Latino youth. Response efficacy was the least productive sociocognitive variable to help explain protective sex. Family cohesion was important for male protective sexual behavior, but not for females. When family cohesion was considered along with the peer group, peers support was associated with risky sex, but this association depended on whether or not youth felt close to their family. Findings were interpreted from a developmental and contextual perspective to consider sociocultural aspects of the context in which participants resided. This study also provided professionals ideas on how to design and/or extend prevention programs that target Latino and African-American youth living in an urban environment.